Family files suit against LVH-Pocono

Monday

May 7, 2018 at 5:59 PMMay 8, 2018 at 10:50 AM

Howard Frank Pocono Record Writer @PoconoHFrank

The family of a deceased Pleasant Valley Manor resident is suing Lehigh Valley Hospital-Pocono for malpractice, including drowning their mother with fluids, according to a complaint filed by an attorney for the deceased patient.

The lawsuit charges the hospital, its employee physicians, staff and hospital contractors failed to properly diagnose the patient and released her from the hospital while experiencing symptoms of a heart attack, congestive heart failure and other serious ailments.

Mary Ludlow, 88 when she died in 2015, was a resident of the community nursing home that provided a variety of supportive care. She was transported on Jan. 14, 2015 to the then named Pocono Medical Center for treatment of unresponsiveness to a fever and oxygen deficiency at the tissue level.

She was admitted for a urinary tract infection.

According to the complaint, the emergency room physician agreed Ludlow was suffering from heart failure, but was unaware that she suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, as well as Parkinson’s Disease and a number of other ailments.

By the third day of her admittance to the hospital, Ludlow was unable to eat and was aspirating, drawing fluids into her lungs when breathing. Later that day, doctors said there was nothing more they could do and she would be discharged with medication for the urinary tract infection and returned to Pleasant Valley Manor.

Ludlow’s daughter and co-plaintiff, Loni Ludlow Kotowski, said she pleaded with doctors not to release her mother under her health condition. Doctors agreed to give her another day in the hospital before releasing her.

She was released and returned to Pleasant Valley Manor. Its clinicians determined Ludlow was sick and needed to be returned to the hospital. The complaint describes Ludlow as wheezing from both lungs and unresponsive to verbal stimuli. The family requested St. Luke’s Health Network, but she was returned to Pocono Medical Center instead.

Upon her readmission, she was properly diagnosed, clearly acknowledging the “egregious errors of the initial discharge,” the complaint alleges. In the intervening time, her condition deteriorated.

Ludlow died in hospice care six days after her readmission to the hospital on Jan. 24, 2015.

On June 5, 2015, Ludlow’s family met with her private physician and Chief Medical Executive for PMC, Dr. Jonathan Goldner, who the complaint alleges the hospital had poor communications and that Ludlow had been discharged when it appeared her status had changed dramatically between Jan. 17 and Jan. 18, 2015.

Dr. Rose Gulibe, then Pocono Medical Center's director of Palliative Care Program, and a staff member, allegedly told Kotowski that Ludlow’s death should never have happened and that the hospital “drowns the elderly” because they don’t check fluids, electrolytes, nutrition and aspiration.

The lawsuit alleges that the health network, hospital and overseeing physician intentionally and knowingly discharged Ludlow below her baseline, knowing that she was unresponsive and at immediate and imminent risk of congestive heart failure and death. It also alleges the hospital failed to re-examine and check Ludlow’s fluids, electrolytes, nutritional status and aspiration levels at the time of discharge.

The plaintiffs admit Ludlow was gravely sick around the time of her admittance to the hospital and had a do not resuscitate order in place.

“This is about the principle of the matter,” plaintiff’s attorney Albert Murray said. “This is not about money.”

Ludlow’s son, and co-plaintiff Matthew Ludlow agreed.

“The suffering my mother went through the last five or six days of her life were something you wouldn’t want to go through if you were healthy,” he said. “I start thinking how she suffered, I get a little emotional about it. It was right in front of our eyes.”

Lehigh Valley Hospital – Pocono did not comment on the lawsuit.

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